Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — The reshuffling of President Barack Obama’s cabinet gained speed yesterday when
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced her resignation, but White House officials said three others,
including Attorney General Eric Holder, would remain in their jobs.

Obama hailed Solis, who presided over a period of high unemployment, as “a tireless champion for
working families” during “the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.” The president
said that “her efforts have helped train workers for the jobs of the future, protect workers’
health and safety, and put millions of Americans back to work.”

Solis had been the first, and only, Latino-American woman in a top cabinet post. Her
resignation, following the resignation of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa
Jackson and the withdrawal of Susan Rice from consideration for secretary of state, intensifies
debate about whether there will be enough racial and gender diversity in Obama’s second-term
cabinet.

Obama has been restocking his cabinet before his inauguration Jan. 21, this week unveiling
nominees to lead the Defense Department and Central Intelligence Agency. Today, he is expected to
nominate White House chief of staff Jacob Lew to be treasury secretary. Earlier, he named Sen. John
Kerry, D-Mass., as his choice for secretary of state. All four nominees are white men.

White House aides said that Holder, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and
Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki would remain in their current posts. People familiar with
Holder’s thinking said he does not expect to stay in office for Obama’s entire second term, and
perhaps for as little as a few months.

Obama relied heavily on support from women and minority groups in the election, and some
supporters have voiced concerns about a lack of women in top cabinet jobs. But White House press
secretary Jay Carney defended the president’s hiring record yesterday.

“Women are well-represented here in the president’s senior staff,” Carney said. He suggested
waiting to see the “totality” of the president’s second-term cabinet before rendering judgment on
the diversity of his senior staff.

Solis had been widely expected to resign to run for office in Los Angeles, most likely for the
powerful Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Solis has defended the administration’s record on job creation despite a stubbornly high
unemployment rate, which stands at 7.8 percent nationwide and is far higher for African-Americans
and Latinos.

She also was criticized by some coal-mine safety experts for failing to shake up the department’s
Mine Safety and Health Administration or implement effective new regulations after the Upper Big
Branch coal-mine explosion in April 2010 in West Virginia. It killed 29 workers.